Chris Feldmanis, slots product manager at Betsoft, discusses the company’s latest video slot titles and looks at some of the key consumer trends for 2020.
Casino Review: Which products did you spotlight at this year’s ICE London?
Chris Feldmanis: We presented our soon-to-launch video slot, Super Sweets, as well as forthcoming release, Total Overdrive at this year’s show. Super Sweets is a 5×3 video slot featuring sticky wild respins and an action-packed free spins mode, while Total Overdrive updates the classic fruit machine concept, offering three reels and five pay lines and boasting an 80s inspired design, sure to appeal to nostalgia-craving players.
We also showcased some of the newest iterations of Max Quest, which we look forward to releasing this year. Alongside this, we displayed a game called Spring Tails which is orientated toward the Asia market – a key focus for us in our ongoing international expansion – and forms part of our Red Dragon line. So we’ve had a wide variety of content on show.
CR: What are some of Betsoft’s key markets at the moment?
Chris Feldmanis: Europe is a major focus for us, we received certification in Italy last year, in a month’s time we’ll be launching in Spain which is looking to be a significant market for us with a lot of big operators lined up, and of course we also have our established markets such as Germany. Additionally, we are keeping a close eye on the changing regulatory situation in countries such as Sweden, while the CIS markets are shaping up to be another promising region for us.
CR: What are you seeing in terms of consumer trends?
Chris Feldmanis: Across 2018-2019, we saw a lot of operators picking up on things like feature buys and bonus buys. They also wanted higher risk slots, and variations of Megaways of course.
However, this year we’re seeing an increased focus on mathematics. As we kick off the new decade, I believe we’re going to see players going back to the classic, core gameplay elements. Players are looking for entertaining slots, combining with eye-catching art and great music, backed by a solid maths model.
It’s important to point out that here at Betsoft, we’re always looking forward to the future, we’re not just thinking one or two years ahead, we’re looking way down the line.
As part of this, interacting with players is very important to us. We make every effort to reach out to them and listen to the features they want to see. We also incorporate feedback from the casino community and we keep a close eye on Twitch and different forums.
Additionally, we carry out extensive play-testing before we bring our games to market and make any adjustments and further fine-tuning based on the responses we receive back from that process, to ensure that our titles are as polished as possible.
